Bed Bath & Beyond registry nightmare = major etiquette issue?

Ugh, that's awful! Maybe you could contact the person who gave the gift and just say something like, "I had already gotten the same gift from someone else, so had to return"? Then they could choose to send you a new gift or not do anything.

That's pretty standard - they (the store) of course would credit the purchaser if you did it online. You can just tell the co-workers that the gifts were duplicates and your old lady aunt gave you the original and she could not find the receipt. Always blame the old lady aunts.

I wouldn't bring it up unless they do. Whatever you say will sound like a lie. I'm not sure why you returned it but If they do bring it up tell the truth.

Ouch. That is awkward. I agree with @Robin... blame the old lady aunts.

@Robin - It seems so funny, because if it can be done in-store (via merchandise credit) it seems nuts that they couldn't do it online, especially since I have to imagine the majority of their registries are online. We were registered at Amazon too and they give you a gift certificate when you return the gift. Good tip on the old lady aunts .

@KeitaiKT - Seriously! In one case, that's exactly what happened -- my co-workers happened to go off-registry, not look to see that a blender was given, and got me a crazy nice Vitamix without a receipt that I definitely couldn't return. With the second gift, we realized we just needed a larger version of what they got us, which was a rice cooker.

@JuliaT and @Vanessa - we are definitely leaning on the side of not saying anything, because it seems like one of those situations that could be made worse through the effort to try to be polite and apologize. It would sound like we'd want the gift back... or something? Way too hard to communicate via email or even in-person. That said, for the record, the returns were definitely for legit reasons.

I wouldn't say this makes bed bath and beyond a nightmare, and I think Amazon is the only ones who would do that online. Sorry it happened you though and a good reminder to other brides

Not a big shocker. You returned it. That gives a refund to the original payment. In store they can do credit based off the registry info. Unless they watch their cards closely they may not notice right away. If you mention it to them now, months later it'll come across as "ooops, can you give us that money back" because they can't fix the mistake either.

I wonder if there's a caveat/specific instructions about returning registered items online. I returned my excess gifts in the store and got store credit (with the packing slip). It was easy.

@AndixLyn and @e=mc2 - Yep, it's a good reminder that Amazon tends to invest in every part of the consumer experience (and obviously, they're ecommerce native), and the big-box retailers are still probably catching up. Recently, I bought my husband a watch for his birthday off macys.com , we received it but wanted to exchange it for another color, and they can't process exchanges via mail return, so we had to return it, get reimbursed, then buy it again.

I'm mostly annoyed because I did the legwork to search everything out before I returned it, only to find out after the fact from their CR reps.

Wow that is so weird. I mean why would they even allow that to happen? I wouldn't say anything. It's good to know because I was thinking we may register there.